Winner of European Union Literature Prize, 2021
Published in Italy, Serbia.
The Plague or Calamity is a wonderful metaphor for contemporary Albania experiencing a pandemic, and perhaps for what the author sees as the gluttony of humankind and its desecration of nature and human values. Tom Kuka fills his cart with bodies sick with ‘calamity’ while someone kills to cover up the sin from which all the horror flows. In a monarchical Tirana of turmoil, filth, cruelty and wickedness, the city’s population is dying of calamity – the real monster, sitting cross-legged, shortening lives and extinguishing humanity. In the meantime, a seemingly ordinary crime occurs: a Roma woman who casts fortune with a cup has had her throat cut in one of the poorest parts of the city. The main character, Di Hima, following the footsteps of Doctor Needle (the protagonist of a very well-known Albanian folk tale), is looking for the murderer. He needs to discover the killer and the motives that have driven them to such cruelty. Hima, the chief investigator of Tirana, was first introduced in the author’s debut novel Jujube on Cobblestone.